The Reus City Council will recover up to eight water wells over the next two years that will provide a maximum of 3,700 cubic meters of water daily, which is equivalent to multiplying by five the flows coming from current own funds. All this will involve an investment of 2.6 million euros.
This Thursday the council has already put three into operation, located next to the Bellissens highway, which will provide about 1,000 cubic meters per day. In that case, the investment was 543,000 euros.
The city council has stressed that “the desire is to diversify the different sources of supply” to reduce dependence on water that currently comes from the Ebro and the Siurana-Riudecanyes system.
According to the Reus City Council, the three drinking water wells that the council has already connected to the supply network had the infrastructure to come into service since 2012. However, the presence of contaminants made it necessary to implement their own water collection system. purification.
During the last five years, the council has worked on the project which, as they have assured, “has been long and complex” at an administrative level, since the equipment is located on the edge of the public railway domain and, therefore, was authorization from Adif is necessary.
Apart from these three wells, the council plans to recover another five before 2025. In fact, in the coming weeks the connection to the supply network of the well known as IGME (Geological and Mining Institute of Spain), located at the end from the Bellisens highway. This project has an investment of 310,231 euros.
This week, the council has also put out to tender the construction of a water treatment plant – using the reverse osmosis technique – which, according to the City Council, will make it possible to inject water from the Fortuny neighborhood mine into the supply network. . In that case, the investment is 498,000 euros.
Aigües de Reus has assured that it also has the project ready to recover several wells located within the airport grounds, with a budget of 650,000 euros.
On the other hand, work is also being done on the project for the installation of a water treatment system from wells located in the area of ??the Agro-Reus industrial estate, in order to make it drinkable and inject it into the supply network. The planned investment amounts to 350,000 euros.
Finally, Reus City Council plans to recover the Mas Miarnau well and its connection to the drinking water supply network. It is a well from 1933 that had fallen into disuse and will be used to irrigate this garden area, as well as to supply the city’s drinking water.
These five wells will be added to the twenty that the city currently has. According to the manager of Aigües de Reus, Joan Carles Ferraté, all this water coming from its own resources will become 19% of the total water used in the city, while the remaining 81% will be from the Tarragona Water Consortium (CAT). . Thus, the city will go from using 5% of its own water to 19%.
“It is essential to diversify supply sources,” defended Ferraté, who considers that Reus “has done so historically.” A few words shared by Mayor Sandra Guaita, who added that Reus has been working to combat the drought for years, since “it has suffered a lot” and at some point in history it has run out of water.
For his part, the Councilor for the Environment and Sustainability of the Reus City Council, Daniel Rubio, has celebrated that “the city has gained a little more water” of kilometer zero and of quality with the launch of the three new wells. Bellissens. Rubio has also stressed that in this way dependence on the CAT and the Siurana-Riudecanyes system is reduced “a little more.”
In total, Reus City Council will have invested close to five million euros before 2025 in the Pla de Sequera. Of these, 2,603,000 euros will be allocated to the recovery of drinking water wells and 1,610,000 euros to water wells for non-potable use, such as irrigation of parks and gardens. In addition, other investments must be added, such as the renewal of the network or the installation of new telemetry systems, among others.
